I wonder if I ought to keep living my life just like everybody else. . . . I'll definitely become famous. It's not that I want to be on television or anything, though." So begins Risa Wataya's book Install. In real life, Risa certainly did become famous when she received the Bungei Literary Award last year.

The award is given to up-and-coming new authors. Previous winners include such famous writers as Yasuo Tanaka, the current governor of Nagano Prefecture. Risa is a 17-year-old high school student in Kyoto. She is only the second person ever to win the prestigious award before their eighteenth birthday, and the first for 20 years.

Risa has been a bookworm since her elementary-school days, but when she became a high school student she began reading more and more widely, including authors from Osamu Dazai, who portrays people's feelings and the atmosphere in Japan in the hard times during and after World War II, to Banana Yoshimoto, a modern writer who is popular among young women. She says, "Just reading books is tiring, and I thought I'd try writing something myself." So, when she was a tenth grader she began writing. Install is the first story that she has finished.

The main character in her book is a high-school girl who spends her days lounging around at home instead of going to school. One day she meets a precocious sixth-grade boy who lives in the neighborhood, and together they do a part-time job using the girl's old computer.

The basic theme running through the book is said to be meeting new people and finding out new things about yourself. In the words of one judge, "Risa knows how to tell a really entertaining story. Her writing is very insightful."

She entered the story in the Bungei Literary Award, and as the winner her story was turned into a book. Risa says, "I always wanted my own book, but it's still pretty unbelievable that I achieved my dream so quickly." She says she wants to write more novels that explore human feelings in the future.

Risa is studying hard for her upcoming university entrance exams and says, "I've put down my pen and won't write again until the exams are over." It looks like we'll have to wait a while longer for her next novel.

(Install is published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha, Publishers.)

Photos: (top) Risa Wataya; (center) Risa is one of the youngest winners of the Bungei Literary Award (Yomiuri Shimbun); (bottom) the front cover of Risa's book, Install.